Fleeting
by Mistress Of The Macabre
Summary: In his smoke-induced haze, Malfoy reminisces about Potter and his friends, and decides that, despite everything, they weren't so bad after all. Slight onesided Dramione -if you squint.


**~This is my response to a request I received from a good friend of mine. I'm proud to have been asked, and even more proud that I actually got it written down! ^-^ I really hope you like it, my friend! **

A roaring, billowing noise gave them all a moment's warning.

Malfoy, wandless and afraid, turned and saw both Weasley and Crabbe running as hard as they could up the aisle towards them.

"Like it hot, scum?" roared Crabbe as he ran.

But it became obvious that he appeared to have no control over what he had done. Flames of abnormal size were pursuing them all, licking up the sides of the junk bulwarks, which were crumbling to soot at their touch.

"_Aguamenti!" _Potter bawled, but the jet of water that soared from his wand evaporated in the air. Malfoy reached for his own wand, but, remembering that he didn't have it, seized Goyle, who had been stunned by Mudblood Granger, and hauled him along, the muscles in his body screaming in protest. Crabbe outstripped them all, an expression of utmost terror on his face. The fire pursued them. It was not normal fire; Crabbe had used a curse of which even Malfoy had no knowledge, twisting and mutating, first forming a pack of flaming beasts, then fiery serpents, then dragons, and then creatures for which there was no name. Debris was hurled into fiery mouths by clawed feet, before turning to ash inside the inferno.

As he ran, Malfoy had a queer insight into what it might feel like if _he _was scooped up by the flames, if he was consumed by the blaze. His skin would redden, and smoke, and the smell would be absolutely terrible; the smell of cooking bacon, and the enchanted fire would like that, wouldn't it? It would be encouraged by the smoking flesh, the smell of bacon. Malfoy shuddered, and moved faster- Potter and his friends had faded from view- had Malfoy taken a wrong turn?

The roar of the fire jolted Malfoy from his gruesome thoughts. He stopped dead in his tracks; he looked up to see that the fiery monsters were circling him and Goyle, drawing closer and closer, claws, horns, and tails lashed impatiently, as they thirsted for their demise. The heat was a solid wall around them.

Crabbe was nowhere to be seen.

Without thinking, Malfoy began to climb the nearest pile of junk, hauling Goyle along as though he were a tonne of bricks; as the fire snarled and hissed and roared, Malfoy climbed, feeling the heat press in upon him, feeling sweat drip down his body. The smoke and heat were becoming overwhelming very quickly; even as he neared the top of the pile of desks, Malfoy could feel his body slowing down. The firestorm below him was getting closer; images of charred bodies, peeling skin, and, worst of all, the smell of cooking bacon, all of these began to override Malfoy's mind, and, as he tried desperately to suck in air that was not contaminated by smoke, he knew that he was going to die.

He clutched Goyle to his body, rapidly growing dizzy from smoke inhalation, and he thought that it was the least he could do- stay with Goyle, even in death. In the past, he had treated him horribly, and know, as the monsters came in, he thought it only fair that he die with Goyle.

He screamed, a thin, high-pitched keen of terror amongst the terrible commotion. He was only seventeen. He really didn't want to die.

It all happened very quickly then.

The swooping of broomsticks. The roar of Weasley and Potter.

Malfoy, hardly daring to believe it, looked skywards, and there they were, Potter, Weasley, and Granger, all soaring towards him on broomsticks. Malfoy raised one hand, and both Potter and Granger made as if to grab the sweat-slicked, slightly blistered hand of Draco Malfoy.

In that moment, as he was hauled atop a broomstick with Potter, and Goyle was placed with Weasley, Malfoy felt a queer feeling of gratitude overwhelm him. Despite everything he and Potter had gone through, despite the endless arguments, the duels, the rivalry, despite the fact that Potter was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and he, Malfoy, was a Death Eater, Potter had still come back for them. He had still come to save Malfoy.

As the broomsticks hurtled towards the exit, Malfoy felt oddly calm. Potter wasn't half the asshole Malfoy had tried to make him out to be. Weasley wasn't so bad, either.

And as for Granger…in that odd moment where time itself seemed to stop, it mattered not that she was Muggle-born, that his kind, the Death Eaters, though of people like her as Mudbloods, someone to be despised.

In that moment, eyes alight with furious passion, she was beautiful.


End file.
